Chinese Sauces for Home Cooking

This page is a summary of the Chinese sauces that we commonly used in our Chinese home cooking, plus the examples of our recipes and affiliate links of these sauces if you want to buy them on Amazon.

Chinese Sauce (1): Chili Broad Bean Paste

Pixian (Chili) Bean Paset, 郫县豆瓣酱, perhaps is the most used in our Chinese home cooking. It is a fermented bean paste originally made in Sichuan Province Pixian county, therefore it is called Pixian bean paste. You may find other brands of chili bean paste, but the brand of "Pixian" is the most well-known in the mainland China. It is a definitely number 1 choice for our home cooking.

There are different brands at Amazon. As I mentioned early, the one we used is Pixian Braod Bean Paste. Click photo will direct you to more details on Amazon.

How to Use It? The
most common way we use it is to fry it at beginning, after the oil is
heated up, add one third or half of a tea spoon (depending on the dish
you are making). Just a very quick frying will help the bean paste
release the flavour, smells really nice, then you can add other
ingredients to cook. You may check above mentioned dishes for more
details. Because it is the fermented bean paste, my father would always
cook (fry) it rather than directly add to the salad dish.

How to Store?

For this product, the paste is packed in a plastic bag. When my parents used it, they normally transfer it into a glass or plastic jar, add oil on top, then use a cap to seal the jar. Once sealed by oil, it can be stored in room temperature for a long time.

Alternatively, you can find another one which has already put the paste in the jar for you. In Chinese it is called Hong You Dou Ban 红油豆瓣

Pixian Bean Paste is rarely to see in the normal food market (in the UK) except Chinese food shops. Sometime I would buy Lee Kim Kee, a famous brand from Hong Kong. The way to use it is the same as Pixian chilli beam paste.

One difference comparing to the chili bean paste is that it can be directly add to the salad dish or cold noodles, no need to cook it.

It is packed in a glass jar, with chilli oil on top, well sealed. It can be stored in room temperature for very long time. The black bean is very soft and full of flavour. Sometime I cannot help just picking up the black beans and eat them, so it is always finished very quickly if I have one in house.

Chinese Sauce (3): Chili Oil

The chili oil is a must-have when we make all kind of Sichuan salad dish, such as this Sichuan Cold Noodle and Bean Sprout Salad. It is also very convenient if you just want to add little bit spicy taste but not too rich flavor like chili bean paste, because chili oil normally is plain, not salty as bean paste.

In my home, my parents would make their now chili oil together with other flavors too. If you are interested, can have a look here: Chinese Homemade Chili Oil (with video too).

But you don’t have to to make it yourself because it is available from Amazon. I like Lee Kum Kee's chili oil.

In Chinese we have many noodle sauces with difefrent flavors. The noodle sauces are very convenient to use, can be used for boiled noodle or fried noodle dish. However, I can't find those noodle sauces on Amazon. Only one is for Chinese Dan Dan noodle, a popular Sichuan noodle dish.

Chinese Sauce (5): Soy Sauce & Wine Sauce

Light Soy Sauce & Dark Soy Sauce are very commonly used in our home cooking. Light soy sauce is used to add flavour, dark one is to add the dark brown colour that normally used for red cooked dish, such as Red Cook Carp or Red Cooked Rib Potatos. We used light soy sauce more often than the dark soy sauce.

Cooking wine is often used when cook a meat dish, especially fish. The purpose is to remove some smells from the raw material. Some people like the special fragrant of wine, so they may use it to other meat dish to give some additional flavour. Only need add a small amount like one of two tea spoons to the dish would be fine.